Boardgames anyone?
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I've decided that this year I'm going to delve deeper into geekdome and I picked up the Lord of the Rings the card game as well as the Game of Thrones the card game( the one based on teh books not the tv show). I've not managed to get round to playing a game of thrones with anyone yet as I'm not looking forward to explaining how it all works but I've spent a good 5/6 hours playing the lord of the rings game and I think it pretty awesome. Will need to pick up some of the expansion packs. I've got my eye on the firefly game and arkham horror and trying to decided which one to get at the end of the month

There are a lot of board games I read about that involve negotiating/diplomacy/scheming etc. what's the general etiquette for this sort of thing?

Do you generally do it at the table? Or would you label the kitchen as the Super Secret Consulate Affairs Room and people shut themselves in there to put their cunning plans in place?

Dunno. Never really played those games much, as my brother is usually part of the group and he has on more than one occasion been on the verge of ragequitting Catan because I tried "talking the others into letting me win". Catan.

I imagine most people do it at the table, and reserve the kitchen for high-level negotiations, though.

I was thinking of games like Twilight Imperium/Eclipse etc, where alliances are made and broken etc. Is this supposed to be done in secret or is that not the done thing in the honourable world if board gaming?

I'd recommend Arkham Horror over Firefly, personally. Firefly isn't a bad game, at all, but I think it's far less replayable, out of the box, than I'd first hoped. There's a reason that Arkham Horror has been insanely popular all these years. Whilst it can be pretty fiddly until you get used to it, it'll keep you going for numerous plays. Works far better solo than Firefly, too.

Watch a couple of YouTube vids for both (Box of Delights YouTube page is exceptionally good for showing and teaching games; they also have a brilliant series on Mage Knight).

More Lords of Waterdeep and London with my daughter yesterday. I really don't know where she learns to gloat like that. It's not from me; I never win anything.

Had a massive four games of Arkham Horror back to back over a couple of days. Couldn't roll one damn dice my way. I've got it padded with the Dunwich Horror expansion and I'm seriously ready to jump on Innsmouth when it's reprinted in a couple of months.

In other news, think I'm going to try to get back into Race for the Galaxy (which will mean watching a how to play tutorial again) as I've got the first expansion sitting here, which includes a vicious module for solo play.

Still think Sentinels of the Multiverse is one of the best card games I've ever played. If you've got any interest in comics (not that I had) it's well worth you looking into it.

Oh, and had several games of The Duke. Cracking Chess-like variant with a dash of randomness and a much shorter time limit. Pulling new pieces out of a bag means no two games are alike. Great fun.

The Duke is great, we played several games of it yesterday. It feels a lot more like a skirmish than chess does, which I really like, and my gf beat me several times which she wouldn't have felt like she could have with chess. This has replaced chess for me.

The only thing is that there's supposed to be expansions for it, but I haven't seen them available anywhere...

I did a bit of a run through yesterday, just to get my head round it, and I won't lie, it's still very much Talisman at heart. But that's find with me as I love Talisman as a sort of easy going Sunday afternoon story generator and I love me some 40k.

There are some changes though that make things a little less by the numbers. There are 3 different types of threat now with different colours represented on board spaces. Red (Orkz and Daemons), Yellow (Eldar and something else) and Blue (Nids and something else) with Chaos interspersed between all 3 I think. These then tie in with missions you have to complete, which give things a little more purpose.

Levelling and special abilities are now handled via a nifty player dial thing and the way gear has charges to use makes things a little more tactical, not by much though. The production values are also through the roof. It's gorgeous and the 40k theming is perfect.

All in all there are a good few changes that probably fix a number of frustrations with Talisman, but at its heart it is still Talisman in space and it still all hangs on the roll of dice and the cards you draw, so if you're not a fan of the original you probably won't like this.

Relic might be a case of try before you buy, although if you like the theme I'd say it was a lock for you, phage. It is still a roll and move game, but there's several ways to mitigate dice and luck. It's worth it just to see that gorgeous board on the table.

I'm hoping Talisman is updated and fitted with the improved mechanics of Relic. It makes for a much less frustrating game.

Oh, and had several games of The Duke. Cracking Chess-like variant with a dash of randomness and a much shorter time limit. Pulling new pieces out of a bag means no two games are alike. Great fun.

The Duke is great, we played several games of it yesterday. It feels a lot more like a skirmish than chess does, which I really like, and my gf beat me several times which she wouldn't have felt like she could have with chess. This has replaced chess for me.

The only thing is that there's supposed to be expansions for it, but I haven't seen them available anywhere...

Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it. They do feel like skirmishes whereas chess is a full on campaign.

Oh and one interesting thing about The Duke - I had a conversation with Paul from BoardGameGuru when I was hunting for a copy. He said he'd never sold one, then suddenly they all got shifted in a day or so. I mentioned that Rab Florence had written his review on RPS a few days beforehand and the penny dropped. The guy has quite a following clearly! Presumably you read that review too cubby?!

ok so as much as I love boardgames I never really have the capital to invest in them as I'd like. Have been considering buying one to play when my 14 yr old boy comes to stay, so im thinking it would be me, him, my mrs and maybe his gran.
I was thinking a zombie type game as we all like that sort of genre ( despite it being overused) and was thinking of last night on earth, seems to have a good rank on BGG. doesn't seem overly complicated and the expansions mean we can move on with it.

Anyone played it a bit and can comment on how good it is? or recommend something similar but better?

LNOE is good, but I think City of Horror is better. I was dubious about CoH after the EG review, but after some folks posted about it in this thread, I picked it up and my regular group was on it like a tramp on Special Brew. You can't go wrong with either game.